10 Players Who Completely Failed At Manchester United
For every Eric Cantona there's an Anderson lurking around the corner...
As the world's most valuable sporting club, a lot is expected of Manchester United's players, management and even the fans. Disappointing positions in recent years have threatened to take much of the shine off the club, even with Sir Alex Ferguson's huge successes still fresh in the memory.
By the look of it, it seems things aren't going to improve until even more money is invested in so-called 'World Class Talent'. And unfortunately, the Red Devils have a far from unblemished record when it comes to spending big to bolster their squad.
Despite signing some of the world's top players, United simply haven't gotten value for money on other deals. Looking back on some of the more notorious examples, it's hard not to agree with Arsene Wenger that price and billing with the press don't always count for much when it comes to signing the RIGHT players.
And while fan backlash has often been the downfall of players at Old Trafford, sometimes the toxic reactions are entirely warranted.
Even Sir Alex dropped a few transfer clangers over the years, chasing a new generation of great stars, but he definitely wasn't the only one to waste money on failures...
10. William Prunier
28-year-old, experienced French defender Prunier arrived at Old Trafford on trial in 1995 and big things were expected of him. After all, he was a former team mate of United's midfield talisman Eric Cantona.
Prunier was thrust into the first team almost immediately after his arrival as Sir Alex was without his three first-choice centre backs: Bruce, May and Pallister. And to his credit, the Frenchman rose to the challenge of the Premier League very ably and partnered a young Gary Neville against QPR. His distribution and interceptions caught the eye and Ferguson kept faith with him for the following game against Tottenham.
The game got off to a terrible start when both Denis Irwin and Peter Schmeichel joined the injury list, and it didn't look like things couldn't get much worse. Sadly they could as Prunier completely forgot how to play football and stood by and watched as United conceded four goals.
Bizarrely, Sir Alex offered Prunier another month's worth of a trial but the Frenchman opted against remaining with the club. Probably a wise decision overall as the fans recently voted him the sixth worst United player in history.